


Wishing On Stars

by Greenninjagal



Series: Friends on the Other Side (Your Side) [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Bullying, Grades, Pattons only there for a second, Standardized Tests, Student!Dee, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Teacher!Logan, Thomas is a good bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 02:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal
Summary: And at half past the Little Dipper, Dee was in his backyard on a playset that should have succumbed to the natural selection a decade ago, with the test in his hand and his ears ringing from a teacher who had such absolute faith in Dee’s ability, he had managed to make Dee doubt the very law of his life.(Like Newton’s law of Gravitation, or Murphy’s law of Perversity: Dee’s law of Loneliness.)((It has a ring to it, didn’t it?))***aka Dee's world is shifting and he doesn't know what to do about it.





	Wishing On Stars

Dante Ethan Ekans has never thought of himself as dumb. It’s simply not something he’s ever allowed himself to consider the possibility of. So what if his grades sucked and he couldn’t even buy a candy bar at the market with his unweighted GPA? So what if he wasn’t in any honors clubs or wearing nerd glasses or correcting his teachers in class? So what if he had never found a grammar error in his textbooks or maxed out his library card (can those be maxed out?)?

Dante Ethan Ekans— _ ugh  _ just call him Dee—was not, is not, and never will be “dumb”. He’s fought for his grades and lost, he doesn’t have time to waste on honor clubs, and its not like he needs to give his teachers anymore reasons to hate him. Since when has anyone actually read the textbooks? And he’s never really found a good book that keeps his attention past the third chapter.

  
But that’s never meant that he was dumb.

And fuck Dr. Logan Ackroyd for making him question that about himself.

Dee leans forward on the rickety structure, pressing his head into his arms into the cool metal bars as he does. He wants to stare up at the stars, wants to bury his head in his arms and sleep, he wants to tear the the packet of papers in his right hand to shreds and then feed it to Dr. Ackroyd with a sneer.

The stars over head twinkle, because that's all the stars do. Dee had learned at the lovely age of six, no amount of wishing on the stars was going to change how reality had panned out. Stars were just lights in the sky with no ability to bring his dad back or obscure the burn marks on his face. 

The papers crinkle in his hand, like a campfire, like a car crash that once again ruined his life. Or is ruining _ .  _ Or, perhaps, is in the process of ruining? It feels like it, like everything good and great that Dr. Ackroyd had promised was collapsing on him and suffocating him all over again.

_ “I know you can do it,”  _ The teacher had said.

And Dee really hates him for it. Really hates Mr. Walker for that car accident he was in and for not coming back, hates Dr. Ackroyd for showing up with his gaze of steel and his stupid ties and his “equality under the law” reign that’s dragged Dee from the cave everyone had exiled him too and let him enjoy a bit of light. _ _

Sure, Dee  _ can _ do it. He can also throw himself from the top of this old playground set and fracture his arm or something so he doesn’t have to go back to that stupid room and see that stupid teacher ever again.

The stars blink down at him, and maybe they take pity on the boy who aced Dr. Logan Ackroyd’s midterm test last week, because Dee thinks they look a little less distant than before.

He knows he’s not dumb. He knows that the formal red pen on the test, the long line, the circle and the next long line mean something great and amazing is on the brink of happening. He knows that Dr. Logan Ackroyd is to blame for it, because the man has no time for jokes and no time for nonsense and no time to waste leading Dee astray.

He knows the man means well.

He knows that he hates him for it.

Since when did anyone look at Dee and “mean well”? Since when did any teacher look at him and see something worth believing in? Since when had Dee wanted them to?

Dee knows when: since at exactly nine hours and nineteen minutes ago when Dr. Ackroyd had called him to "please, wait a moment, Mr. Ekans! Its imperative I talk with you." And Dee like a fool (which is completely different from being dumb, thank you very much. Dee very much was a fool), had paused just short of fleeing the classroom.

(Kyle Phillips had shoulder checked his way by him, the healing purples of his black eye just visible under the layer of concealer his mother had applied that morning and he had worn away through the day.)

Dr. Ackroyd had taught up to the bell, or at least he had talked up to the bell. Dee and the rest of the class had stopped paying attention after 2:15. For a terrifying second Dee had felt a cold hand clench his heart and the voices in his head whispered that this was it, the end, Dr. Ackroyd was finished pretending to be nice to him.

"I hope you don't mind if we walk while we talk," Dr. Ackroyd had said (and it most certainly was "Doctor" because the man had snarled something about several PHDs the last time a student had mistakenly called him Mister Ackroyd. To be honest it had been a little hard to make out while the man was foaming at the mouth). Dr. Ackroyd had gathered all of his teaching notes, several stacks of worksheets that needed grading, and his laptop into a bag and pulled it over his shoulder. 

"You have a younger sibling to pick up at Mind Elementary, correct?" The teacher had asked, "I happen to have a colleague I am meeting there as well. To prioritize our time, it would be efficient to talk while we walk.” 

And Dee hadn’t had a reason not to agree so instead he nodded and let the teacher lead the way.

On their way out of the building, they had run into Mr. Hart who had wished them “a wonderful rest of the day, and oh, Logan, text me when you’re both at the restaurant!” Dr. Ackroyd had waved him off with a soft smile and two seperate promises. Dee hadn’t seen any sign of Resource Officer Roman Prince anywhere, and he was silently grateful he didn’t have to watch the adult man sulk because Mr. Hart showered Dr. Ackroyd in love the second he entered any room. Dee had made sure to avoid that growing drama like the plague. It was a soap opera in the making.

They had carefully trekked out of the school building and down the walking path that lead to the student parking lot and then branched off to the sports fields and to the Elementary school. Dee normally tried to procrastinate the walk for a good fifteen minutes to avoid the drivers that like to play chicken with the kid walking on the sidewalk while they waited for the traffic to ease up. But no one would dare try to run him over with the new substitute teacher by his side.

(The rumor was that Dr. Logan Ackroyd could stop a truck moving at 100 miles per hour with just a look, and Dee wasn't immune to propaganda.)

Dee had focused on how nice of a day it had been outside, how the sun was shining so it wasn’t too cold, how the grass peaking out of the cracks in the sidewalk were rather resilient and how many breaths he was taking and was that too many? Was he annoying Dr. Ackroyd? Should he take less? Could he?  _ How important was it for him to breathe? _

"Mr. Ekans," the teacher had said, "I'm not exactly one for beating around the bush with these types of things. Patton often tells me I am too blunt, while Roman criticizes my delivery. However, I believe the best way to approach any subject is straight on to avoid deluding you with false pretenses."

Dee had wanted to state the hypocrisy: the teacher rambling on about how he should just say something instead of talking around it. But his heart rate had increased with every word which in turn caused his mouth to dry and his tongue to stick to the roof of his mouth. 

“I finished grading the midterm you took,” Dr. Ackroyd had said.

It had been so much worse than any of the thoughts had been swimming through his mind. His chest tightened, his breath silently disappearing and his lungs refusing to work the way they were supposed to. He had wanted to apologize, had wanted to melt into a puddle on the sidewalk right then and there and safe himself from the embarrassment. He had wanted to avoid the part where Dr. Ackroyd tells him so plainly that he never should have risked his reputation for someone as worthless as Dante Ethan Ekans.

But Dee was only human, only a child, only normal. He stared hard down at the sidewalk at the patches of squashed gum that students had spit out in the past while waiting in traffic, at the tuffs of grass peeking up through the grass, at the loose rocks that his scuffed yellowed shoes tapped against.

“Speaking quite frankly,” the teacher had continued, “I was impressed--”

And Dee had really stopped breathing. His chest had heaved, the gasping word billowed past his lips before he could think to keep it back. “What?”

Dr. Ackroyd had reached up and tentatively adjusted his glasses. “I was relating how impressed I was with your test. As I predicted you are far ahead of your class-- far enough that I put in the request to have you moved up to my higher level class.”

“Wait what--” 

“Additionally, your performance exceeded my expectations. You exemplify more dedication to learning than any other student I have seen in a good three years, Mr. Ekans. I entered your missing work last night and you far exceed the requirement for the Science Honor Society. I took the liberty of reaching out to Mrs. Hydrus on your account--”

“Stop!” Dee had blurted out. His mouth tasted like ash, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his head was still ringing from being completely blindsided by the information he had just been given.

Dr. Ackroyd had paused, taking span of three steps to adjust his glassed once again and peer down at Dee. “Pardon? Is there something the matter?”

It was horribly pretentious when he said it like that. In retrospect, Dee groans into his arms and wishes he could invent time travel solely to go back and stop the two of them from ever meeting, from ever having that conversation, from ever existing. Logically, what the teacher had been saying was amazing news, the news of a lifetime: he had gone out of his way to do things for Dee that no other teacher had done and it honestly hadn’t ever occurred to the doctor that he hadn’t needed to do it at all.

“I can’t,” Dee had told him kicking a rock on the sidewalk. He didn’t elaborate, because it hurt so much to get two words out, he couldn’t imagine getting anymore out. He had wondered absently when he had allowed the rose bush to grow around his own neck, allowed to prickly, pesky thorns to embed themselves in his throat, when those blood red petals that had matched the flushed color of his face.

Dr. Ackroyd had let him walk another ten paces in silence-- as silent as it could get with pop music blasting from the cars stuck in the afterschool traffic and the game of honking that was going on distantly from the parking lot (that Dee was pretty sure Kyle was a part of).

“You can’t,” The teacher repeated, but he hadn’t sounded angry or offended. It had taken a moment for Dee to place the tone: somewhere between confused and curious. “I’m afraid I do not understand. As your teacher, I have assessed your ability and professed that you are certainly capable of keeping up in my honors class, and Vice Principal Joan has already confirmed that your school schedule can be amended around the new class with very little impact on your current learning courses. Additionally, the honors club for science has very few requirements: no more than three unexcused absences-- which you have none of--, at least an eighty-five average in the class-- which you now have a ninety seven--, and--”

“--and a grade point average of 3.0.” Dee had finished for him.

Because it wasn’t like at one point Dee hadn’t been looking into honors clubs. He knew collages looked into club activities, and that most honor clubs had scholarships that came with admittance to said honor clubs. 

“Also, Kyle Phillips,” Dee had said lowly, “is president. He gets the power to veto any applications he doesn’t like.”

It had gone without saying that Kyle and him weren’t on the best of terms. The black eye incident hadn’t even blown over yet and it had been a whole week. When Kyle had found out that Dee hadn’t really been punished for punching him, he had whined to his mom, who in turn showed up at the school and demanded that Dee be expelled.

VP Joan had refused on some grounds or other, and it ended with her threatening to sue the entire school system. VP Joan had calmly told her that she was welcome to take them to court, just let them know the date. She had stormed out of the school.

And so far it looked like she wasn’t  _ really  _ going to push it, but VP Joan had pulled Dee into their office and asked him to lay low for a little bit. 

Dee had dragged a hand through his unruly hair, “I guess it doesn’t help that Mrs. Hydrus doesn’t like me much either.” 

It had gone without saying, again, that it wasn’t just Mrs. Hydrus. All the teachers didn’t like Dee much. The “why” was still something Dee was trying to figure out.

He had offered Dr. Ackroyd a parody of a smile. “Sorry that you wasted your time.” 

And that should have been the end of it. That was  _ usually  _ the end of it. One of Dee’s apologies, a short tense silence, a backhanded comment that always,  _ always,  _ felt like a slap in the face and Dee left standing alone once again. When had Dee stopped expecting something better from people?

And why did Dr. Ackroyd keep upsetting these expectations of his?

The teacher had hummed to himself, staring at the distant elementary school. The brick building had a faded look to it: something that had stood for a thousand years and would stand for a thousand more, something that had seen hundreds of kids grow up and move on, something that should have been remembered fondly.

All Dee remembered was the fact his scars matched the pattern of the brick by the southern entrance from the number of times his cheek was grounded into it, and the way a deflated kickball felt slamming into his face repeatedly. He remembered the look on the nurses face when she told him to stop crying over the blood on his face, the annoyed expression from one teacher or other when he came in late covered in bandages. He remembered the librarian who always brought up the car accident when he saw her, always saying what a shame it had been, always ripping the scab off the wound before it could heal over and ten year old Dee trying not to scream at her for it.

“Mr. Ekans,” Dr. Ackroyd had said suddenly. “I have never once wasted my time on anything. I do not plan to start now.” He had picked at the packet of papers in his hand before hands before handing over it to Dee. Dee had taken it without really knowing what was happening.

“What?”

“I’m going to get you into the Science Honor Society Club.” The teacher had told him as if it were really just that easy.

Who knows. Maybe he really thought it was.

“I’m going to do all I can, Mr. Ekans, so I expect you to do as much as well. Bring your grades up.”

“What?!” Dee had stopped in his walk, blinked, and then repeated, “What?!”

“Surely you heard me the first time--”

“I did!” Dee had said hotly, “What do you think I’ve been trying to do this whole time! Bringing my grades up is not-- it’s not that--” He had spit the word between his teeth, “--easy!”

And Dr. Ackroyd had raised an eyebrow at him, in that way of his, “I know you can do it.”

Dee squeezed the test packet in his hand leaning forward on the old playground structure again. There it was. That voice, that absolute conviction in the teacher’s tone. At the moment it had filled Dee with a horrible fiery anger that send him storming away from the teacher and leaving him behind on that sidewalk. 

He had picked up his brother. He had gotten home and did the dishes and made dinner and done everything that wasn’t open his backpack and look at his homework. Then when he had finally caved and pulled the four pages worth of good marks from his bag, he had immediately thrown that stupid test in the trash, taken it back out, flipped through it, ripped several of the pages, crumpled them into a ball, thrown it out again--

And at half past the Little Dipper, Dee was in his backyard on a playset that should have succumbed to the natural selection a decade ago, with the test in his hand and his ears ringing from a teacher who had such absolute faith in Dee’s ability he had managed to make Dee doubt the very law of his life.

(Like Newton’s law of Gravitation, or Murphy’s law of Perversity: Dee’s law of Loneliness.)

((It has a ring to it, didn’t it?))

Dee had been alone for all of his life, alone in his corner of the boxing ring there to be beaten again and again as others used him as a stepping stone to something greater. There had never been anyone cheering for him in the stands, any coach hollering advice at him, any water boy reminding him to drink in between rounds of the fight. It had been him and him alone.

All at once Dee becomes aware of the noise behind him, the dramatic shift in the balance of the playset he had been sitting on that causes the rusted metal screws to whine and the floor to shake. Dee yanks his feet up onto the platform and hugs the metal bar he had been leaning on and tries to remind himself that a four foot fall was not going to kill him.

Then the shaking stops and Dee chances a look behind him to see exactly what idiot chose to come outside and play on the goddamn kids play castle that Dee had already claimed brooding rights on for the night--

“Thomas?”

The eleven-year-old totters on the platform, less than a foot away, on his hands and knees and in socks that have several chucks of the playground mulch stuck to them. The kid looks at him with those wide eyes, a sheepish smile, and he unapologetically shifts so he’s sitting across from Dee. 

“Hi, Dee!”

“What are you doing out here?” Dee asks, “Do you know what time it is? What about mom--”

Thomas picks a piece of mulch off his socks, “I couldn’t sleep.”

Dee had known Thomas since he was eight and Thomas was just a year old. He knows all the kids ticks, the way he picks at his fingers when he’s nervous and lying, and how he hates the cowlick in the back of his hair and how he hates when Dee leaves him alone with their mother, but never says anything because he feels guilty. 

He knows that when Thomas says he can’t sleep its a lie, and he still can’t bring himself to be even a little upset.

“Go back inside, Tom,” Dee tells him.

“Why aren’t you coming in?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer!”

“Go to sleep.”

“Fine!”

And because Thomas has known Dee since he was one and Dee was eight, he leans forward until his head hits Dee’s shoulder.

There’s a pause between the two of them, where Dee goes as still as he can, feeling the pressure of his little brother’s head right there on his shoulder, feeling the weight of the absolute trust, feeling the frustration fade right out of his bones. 

“What…” Dee says, impossibly soft, “are you doing?”

“Sleeping,” Thomas answers equally soft.

The test papers in his hand crumple again, when he squeezes his fingers into his fist to wake himself from the dream he’s been living for the past week since Dr. Logan Ackroyd walked into his life. The reality doesn’t shatter around him; its distressing, worrying, and stupid, because Dee doesn’t think he’s known what to do in this upside down world.

If he accepts it, he’s going to lose it. If he fights it, it will destroy him. In the boxing ring of his life, Dee’s alone, lonely, abandoned and losing. The past week has just been setting him up to knock him back out of the fight and is it wrong for Dee just want to want the final blow to land _ ,  _ already?

“Whats that?” Thomas says.

And because Dee doesn’t lie to his brother, he flattens the front page out and spreads it for the moon to read. “My test.”

“Did you do good?”

“I did.”

“Then why are you sad?”

Dee doesn’t lie to his brother.

He’s not like his mom when she says “it won’t happen again” or like Thomas’s dad who says he’ll “be back in a little bit” and just to “tough it out” until he shows up like he isn’t gonna leave again in a week, a day, a few hours. He isn’t like Thomas’s friends who say they’re not scared of his brother, and he’s not like his own teachers who tell him that they “don’t give out grades, kids earn them”.

So instead he drives his chin into his chest and tries to speak around the lump in his throat. “I’m not sad.”

“Why are you angry then?”

“I’m NOT ANGRY!” Dee snarls, maybe a little more angry than he means, and he doesn’t regret it for a good one, two nanoseconds.

Three nanoseconds and Thomas flinches. “I’m sorry!” 

And then Dee recoils, because  _ fuck, he raised his voice,  _ and  _ this was Thomas  _ and  _ He raised his voice at Thomas.  _

The playset shifts dramatically underneath the two of them, wobbling like Thomas’s last loose tooth seconds before it fell out. Dee’s hand flings to the metal bar, and Thomas grabs the wall opposite of him. There’s a squeak of fear from them both, something shrill enough that Dee’s sure a light at the house across the street flicks on and off and a call to the police is probably being debated (and ultimately discarded, because no one called the cops for Dee’s broken arm three years ago or someone took a metal bat to their mailbox or the rock to the window, or, or, or.)

The playset wobbles, and they both cling to their respective parts, and they both stare at each other. Dee and Thomas.

At some point it stops shaking.

At some point, both their breathing evens out again.

At some point, Thomas says, “oh,” and they’re both quiet. 

Dee can hear the crickets sing, the too-early morning breeze dancing through the wind chimes on someone’s porch, the soft even breaths of his little brother. The test scatters on the ground a few feet below them, picked up by the little wind and tossed across the little yard. Somehow it makes the whole world feel confined to this little bubble where it was him and Thomas and this stupid space that Dee had forced between them.

“I’m sorry,” Dee says and its different from the times he’s said it before, all the times his teachers dragged it out of him and all the times the other kids had claimed one as a person victory. This time he means it, because it’s  _ Thomas _ .

“It’s stupid,” Dee says because he doesn’t lie to his brother, “It stupid and I hate it.”

Thomas, sweet, wide-eyed, little Thomas, waits for him so say more.

“It’s stupid that I’ve made it this far and I can’t go any farther. I hate it. They said that everyone had a chance and then they drew the line right in front of me, like “oh not you”. I hate that everyone has always ignored who I am and what I can do, what I’ve done-- and Thomas? It sucks. I’m so tired of it. I’ve tried so… so very hard to do the right thing every single time. They tell me to apologize, and I do. They tell me to try harder and I do. They tell me that I’m not going anywhere--”

Dee savors a breath, and forces it out just as quickly, possibly a little hysterically, “I don’t wanna be here for the rest of my life, Thomas. I can’t be here forever. It will kill me.”

Thomas at eleven years old is too wise for his age. Because he doesn’t tell Dee that he’s not going to die, he doesn’t tell Dee that its going to be alright, he doesn’t say anything at all.

Dee feverishly wipes at his eyes, because heaven forbid the stars see him cry. 

<strike> (They’ve seen him do that enough already .) </strike>

“Dr. Ackroyd made it seem so easy,” He says barely more than a whisper in the silence of the night. “I’m really scared it might be.”

The metal feels warm to his touch, burning hot and he clings to it like a lifeline that will light his entire body on fire and turn the rest of his skin to match his face and shoulder and arm and, and, and.

“I’m really scared that it’s gonna be that easy after all, and that I’m going to make it out of here and that I’m going to get to college and that it will be the same exact thing all over again.”

“It won’t.” Thomas says, loud enough that Dee has no choice but too focus back in on him. The moonlight is playing with his pale skin and making his eyes shine. Or maybe those are tears. Is he crying? Or is Dee?

Thomas, wise beyond his years, too wise for his eleven years. Thomas says it won’t be like this out there. Thomas says he’s going to have a chance. Thomas agrees with Dr. Ackroyd.

“It won’t be like that, Dee, I promise.” Thomas says. “You won’t let it be.”

Unwavering faith.

_ “I know you can do it.”  _

He brings a hand to his face again rubbing those tricky, telling tears off his face. He sniffs, his ears prick, and his throat stings just a bit. How ridiculous is it, crying at half past too-late, and with his little brother watching him. He thinks of how Dr. Ackroyd must be somewhere probably asleep because that’s what normal fucking people were supposed to be doing--

And stupidly Dee thinks of that boxing ring of his life and thinks of Thomas standing in his corner smiling at him like he is right now, watching him take hit after hit and watching him get back up each time. And he thinks of that Science Teacher watching him with those calculating eyes, pen in hand and analyzing his opponent’s every move and crafting the plan of retaliation---

Just asking Dee to make it to the next round, to the break where he can get to the moment where he remembers why he’s fighting in the first place.

Thomas lets go of the wall, and carefully leans forward again. The playset squeaks slightly. Thomas stops just an inch away from Dee. When he calms down he reaches the last bit forward and hugs him. Dee can feel him shaking, can feel them both shaking.

And then the playset comes toppling down.

They both let loose twin yells of panic-- Dee blindly grabs to his side and pulls Thomas forward, covering him with his arms. The metal screeches, something wooden cracks and Dee feels absolutely, terrifyingly weightless for a full second. 

They hit the ground heavily: Dee, landing on the platform base at an odd angle and Thomas landing on him at an odder angle. Dee loses his grip on his brother he rolls to the side. The air, what little bit of it was left ejected from Dee’s chest, and several part of his back and his arms and his legs are left whimpering with promised bruises.

And they’re left lying there, trying to catch their breaths in the wooden and metal wreckage, staring up at the stars.

And they’re left there, alive even after everything around them had come down around them.

“You okay?” Dee asks the second he’s sure he’s not dead.

“Yeah,” Thomas says equally out of breath. Dee watches him raise his head, slightly, a stupid shiny grin on his face and flushed cheek in the moonlight, “You?”

It’s not that easy, bringing his grades up. It’s not like flicking a switch, or knocking over a domino, or starting a car engine, or, or or. But he’s got a couple people (Dr. Ackroyd, Thomas) in his corner, and something that he wants (Science Honor Society).

And the stars twinkle overhead the same way they’ve always done

“It’s so... fucking late.” Dee chokes out a sopping wet laugh. It tastes like salt and despair and something completely awful that he absolutely hates:  _ hope. _

Dante Ethan Ekans has never thought of himself as dumb. 

He’s not.


End file.
